Flirting is Fun, Godly Conduct is Hard

You've been invited to a party, and you get a call from your best friend that he is going to be there. This completely changes everything, from what you are going to wear to how you do your hair, to what perfume you are going to put on. He seems to like green, so you put that on. You overheard a conversation he had that he thought girls who wore skirts were pretty and feminine, so you put on a skirt.

At the party, you nonchalantly look around, zero in on him and make sure no girls are talking to him. Good, he's with his guy friends. You quickly scan the crowd and see what the other girls are dressed like...do they look better than you? Anyone wearing green? Anyone wearing a skirt? Good, no one is. You don't want to seem too eager to talk to him so you wait and mosey over to the snack table. No, wait, no snacks because it might make you look less attractive. Everyone knows that eating and talking to a guy is a social flaw.

You do eventually make your way over and strike up a conversation about...well, you can't really remember what it was about, but throughout the evening you do what you can to hang out with him and get his attention. After the night is over, you leave, making sure to tell him goodbye and that it was nice hanging out with him. In the car, you look at your best friend and suddenly you are both talking about the evening and "how it went" and every little gesture and glance that was passed between you and him.

Sound familiar? Can you see how childish this looks? An entire night devoted to one guy; one guy who will probably not end up being your husband. In fact, he might end up being the husband of one of the other girls in the room that you were comparing yourself to. All that time and energy for nothing...flirting, giggling, acting a part, paranoid about who else he might be giving his attention to, hoping that he likes how you look...the list goes on.

I set this scenario up to make this point: ladies, it is completely and entirely possible to be a friend to a guy without flirting. It is quite possible that we can be attracted to a guy and not flirt with him. Not only is biblical friendship possible, but attainable with any godly guy whether we are attracted to him or not.

Chances are, if we are flirting with someone we like you are flirting with someone we don't like, too. When it becomes a part of our interaction with one guy, it bleeds itself into you relationships with other guys. We might not “like” Steve, but we unconsciously flirt with him because it has become a part of who we are. No one wants that type of reputation! When we leave that party, what influence are we leaving behind? One where our guy friends are uplifted and drawn to Christ, or one where they are remembering how we looked and acted? Which is more beneficial for us and them in the long run?

This is simple common sense. Flirting is fun, but fleeting. Godly conduct is hard, but lasting. When we are in heaven, what will we remember from here on earth? That we flitted around from one social gathering to the next having fun, or that we were purposeful in pointing people to Christ? I'm not saying that every conversation has to be about the Bible, God, or Jesus and if its not than we are doomed. What I am saying is that fruitful conversation with a guy who is not our husband does NOT involve flirting. Yes, you read that right. Until we are in a permanent relationship, flirting has no value except to get ourselves attention when we shouldn't be seeking attention. The single season we are in now should be dedicated to Christ and Him alone. Giving our heart to a guy prematurely is completely setting ourselves up for it to be broken. Please, let’s save ourselves the heartache. We don't want to be in that place, especially one of our own making.

Thinking this way is for all of us. Whether we are in high school, college or working. Whether the guy is in the church, at school or in the workplace. If we are talking to "that guy", and see him as another woman's future husband, our conduct should change. If it doesn't, we need to ask yourselves some serious, soul searching questions. What's to stop us, then, from flirting with a guy who is actually married? Or us from flirting when we are married? Scary, isn't it? But if we don't ask ourselves this, if we don't seek God's help, if we don't care because we just "want to have fun", then we most likely will struggle with the same thing even when we are married, because we don't magically change when that ring is on our finger. Lasting change comes from God. When our heart is changed, our conduct will change.

If, as single women, we can learn this lesson now, before we are married, we will save ourselves a lot of heartache and struggle after we actually are married. If it's a godly husband we want, chances are he will be more attracted to us if we don't flirt with him than if we do. This aside, our motivation for change must be to please God. To be God-pleasing, we must put off man-pleasing. If God is our primary focus, flirting won't be as much of a struggle because we realize that, ultimately, our satisfaction is in Him alone, and cannot be found in the attention of men.

--Janelle